Symmetries in Compact Stars and Advances in Gravitational Waves—Commemorating 50 Years of the Hulse-Taylor Pulsar

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 774

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
Interests: gravitational waves; testing gravity; pulsars; neutron stars; pulsar timing array; black holes; space and time

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Guest Editor
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
Interests: gravitational waves; fast radio bursts; cosmology

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Guest Editor
Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100080, China
Interests: tests of gravity theories; gravitational waves; pulsars and neutron stars; astrophysical studies of dark matter; black hole spacetime; precision tests of fundamental physics; Bayesian data analysis and statistics
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Fifty years ago, Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor discovered the first binary pulsar, PSR B1913+16, which enabled precision tests of gravity in strong-field regimes and provided the first evidence of gravitational waves. This groundbreaking discovery also enhanced our knowledge of possible evolution scenarios of binary systems, and initiated precise mass measurement of neutron stars, shedding light on the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions. Since then, pulsars and other compact stars have become essential tools for exploring fundamental physics that would otherwise remain inaccessible. As a cornerstone of modern physics, the concept of symmetry plays a pivotal role in understanding fundamental interactions. Compact stars, such as neutron stars and black holes, serve as ideal laboratories for studying the symmetries of gravitation and particle physics due to their extreme physical conditions.

Nowadays, gravitational wave astronomy has become one of the most active research fields, involving detectors ranging from terrestrial (LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, ET, CE, etc.) to space (LISA, Taiji, Tianqin, DECIGO, etc.), and even galactic-scale Pulsar Timing Arrays. These studies offer invaluable insights into gravity, the properties of compact stars, stellar and galaxy evolution, as well as cosmology, dark matter and the early universe.

On the occasion of 50 years of the Hulse–Taylor pulsar, this Special Issue aims to gather contributions exploring symmetries in compact stars and recent advances in gravitational wave astronomy. We wish to invite both original and review papers along these lines for this Special Issue.

Dr. Huanchen Hu
Dr. Kristen Lackeos
Dr. Lijing Shao
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • binary pulsars
  • compact stars
  • neutron stars
  • black holes
  • white dwarfs
  • gravitational waves
  • symmetry and asymmetry
  • equation of state of nuclear matter
  • fundamental physics
  • cosmology

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 994 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Timing Analysis of PSR J1741—3016: Efficient Noise Characterization Using PINT
by Yirong Wen, Jingbo Wang, Wenming Yan, Jianping Yuan, Na Wang, Yong Xia and Jing Zou
Symmetry 2025, 17(3), 373; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym17030373 - 28 Feb 2025
Viewed by 251
Abstract
The stable rotation of young pulsars is often interrupted by two non-deterministic phenomena: glitches and red timing noise. Timing noise provides insights into plasma and nuclear physics under extreme conditions. The framework leverages rotational symmetry in pulsar spin-down models and temporal symmetry in [...] Read more.
The stable rotation of young pulsars is often interrupted by two non-deterministic phenomena: glitches and red timing noise. Timing noise provides insights into plasma and nuclear physics under extreme conditions. The framework leverages rotational symmetry in pulsar spin-down models and temporal symmetry in noise processes to achieve computational efficiency, aligning with the journal’s focus on symmetry principles in physical systems. In this paper, we apply a novel frequentist framework developed within the PINT software package (v0.9.8) to analyze single-pulsar noise processes. Using 17.5 years of pulse time-of-arrival (TOA) data for the young pulsar PSR J1741—3016, observed with the Nanshan 26 m radio telescope, we investigate its timing properties. In this study, we employed the Downhill Weighted Least-Squares Fitter to estimate the pulsar’s spin parameters and position. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) was used for model parameter selection. The results obtained with PINT were compared to those from ENTERPRISE and TEMPONEST, two Bayesian-based frameworks. We demonstrate that PINT achieves comparable results with significantly reduced computational costs. Additionally, the adequacy of the noise model can be readily verified through visual inspection tools. Future research will utilize this framework to analyze timing noise across a large sample of young pulsars. Full article
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